


I've Been a Romantic For So Long

by i_am_girlfriday



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: F/M, awkward first date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 00:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13134966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_girlfriday/pseuds/i_am_girlfriday
Summary: Amy and Jonah finally go on a real first date. Amy ends up in her underwear before they even eat dinner, and Jonah faces the reality of what it means to date a divorced, single-mom Amy.





	I've Been a Romantic For So Long

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sandyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/gifts).



> Title from [The XX's _I Dare You_](https://youtu.be/O3DzdYLJsnE). 
> 
> Thank you for all the Superstore fics you've shared. <333 I appreciate everything you do for my OTP

It’s the not too distant future when Jonah and Amy finally go on their first date. It’s a proper date date. Jonah made reservations at a restaurant he found on Yelp, and then cross referenced with the Zagat guide. Amy got her hair done. Okay, it’s a haircut, but it counts.

_It’s weird._ Amy’s been in Jonah’s car before, but it’s weird that he came to her house and opened her door with flowers for her wrapped in cellophane and a ribbon. _Flowers from a florist._ Amy can’t remember the last time she got flowers from Adam that weren’t purchased with her Cloud 9 discount. (The last time she got flowers was from Emma on Mother’s Day when she was nine.)

Jonah is a very cautious driver. He listens to NPR, but he offers to change it to a pop station. Amy can hear her voice in her head when she replies and she sounds oddly high pitched, like she has something caught in her throat. She looks down at her shoes and sees her painted toenails. Emma did them the week before. They’re blue. She doesn’t remember okaying the blue, but it was too late to fix them before Jonah arrived. Open toe shoes were the only thing that went with the outfit Dina picked out, which she only agreed to wear out of duress. Amy can’t remember if she changed her underwear before she left the house. Is she wearing something sexy or did she go with her standard flesh toned boy shorts? She adopted the boy shorts trend years ago and hasn’t looked back. They’re like thongs because they don’t really leave an obvious panty line, but better because she doesn't have dental floss between her butt cheeks, as her mother would say.

“You okay over there?” Jonah asks while stopped at a red light.

Amy feels her head nod. 

“You freaking out?”

“Just a little,” she admits. “Why is this weird? You’re not weird. I’m weird, I mean.”

“I think we both know I’m a little weird. You tell me that like ten times a shift.”

“My brain is going a million miles a minute.” She shakes her head to get it to stop, but she can’t get the mental image of thong underwear out of her mind. Amy bets Jonah sleeps with a lot of women who wear thong underwear. 

“Relax, tell me about your day?” Jonah starts driving again, slowly, making sure there’s at least a car’s distance between him and the driver in front of him.

Amy could tell him that she spent an hour bribing her hairstylist to squeeze her in for a cut. Or she could tell him that she had to make up a lame excuse to her mom to keep Emma overnight. Emma is grounded and wasn’t allowed at a sleepover because she keeps ditching math class. “Oh, you know, it was hectic dealing with family stuff.” It was the wrong thing to say. Amy in distress is an aphrodisiac to Jonah.

“Maybe I can help? Is it Emma? She’s a good egg.”

“She’s failing math. Can you help with math?”

Jonah looks satisfied. “I went to business school, of course I can help her with math. What’s she taking this year?”

“Calculus. She’s ahead a few grades.”

“Oh wow, no, no I cannot help her. I’m more of an applied math kind of person.”

“You mean the kind of math you need to know for gambling?”

“Probability.” Jonah tilts his head. “Well, yeah.”

“It’s fine, I can help her.”

“You can do Calculus?” The surprise in his tone annoys Amy.

She nods her head. “I was supposed to go to Purdue on a math scholarship.”

“Wow.” Jonah takes a hard right turn unexpectedly.

“What, you’re impressed?”

“I knew you were smart.”

“You said I was one of the smartest people you knew,” she reminds him.

“To be fair, we work at a Cloud 9.”

Amy smacks Jonah’s arm across the center console.

“Have you thought about signing up for classes again?”

Amy reaches for her hair to twirl a lock around one finger, a stupid nervous habit she picked up as a teenager that she’s only been able to kick since she hacked off her hair. She likes it short, she thinks it suits her face better. She feels young. She feels younger than someone who has a fifteen year old daughter. She feels younger than a divorcee who gave up on her dreams a long time ago.

“Yeah, but it’s not going to happen. Emma clearly needs me more than ever.” She shrugs. “In a few years, when Emma’s off at college, maybe then I’ll have time to finish my degree.”

“Wow, Emma in college. That sounds so--”

Amy grimaces. “Don’t say old.”

“I wasn’t going to say old.” Jonah bites his lip. 

He _so_ was going to say old. Amy was already feeling insecure going on this stupid date with Jonah and feeling old adds salt to the wound.

“I don’t think you’re old. I’m older than you,” he says.

Amy shakes her head. “I saw this thing on Facebook. It was a graphic from one of those online dating services. They showed that the age of women that men are looking to date stays at a constant twenty, twenty-two max, even as they continue to age. But women continue to up the age of men they’re looking to date as they age. So like, I get it. You’re not too old for me, you’re just right. But I’m definitely too old for you, by about fifteen years.”

“I saw that. Bo posted it on Facebook.”

Amy wrinkles her nose. “Poor Cheyenne.”

“She’s got two good years left,” Jonah says without missing a beat.

Amy shoots Jonah a murderous look.

“I’m joking, obviously.”

Jonah pulls into the parking lot and chooses a spot away from all the other cars. Amy likes that about Jonah, that he’s thoughtful enough to choose a spot so Amy can get out of the car without worrying about dinging the car next to them. Adam always circled the lot looking for the spot closest to the door, like a two second walk was going to kill him or challenge his masculinity.

“Are you going to be okay walking in those?” Jonah points to the peep toe booties with four inch stilettos that she borrowed from Cheyenne.

“Pshaw. Yeah.” Amy will have to cling to Jonah’s arm, but she’ll get to the restaurant eventually. “Just don’t ask me to run a marathon and I’ll be fine.”

“You look great,” he says sheepishly. “I don’t think I said so before because I was afraid I was going to drool.”

“Stop it.” Amy starts to blush.

“I’m serious.”

“You’re just used to seeing me in a blue vest. Anything is better than that.”

“You’re terrible at taking a compliment, you know that.”

Amy knows she is. Her therapist is helping her work through it. She turns toward Jonah as much as her skirt will allow her to. “Thanks.” She looks at Jonah more carefully and notices he looks extra nice. He always manages to look good, even with the blue vest. “You look very handsome.”

“Not cute?” He smiles.

Amy laughs and smiles back at him. “You know you’re cute.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Let’s go eat.” Amy waits for Jonah to open her car door because she knows that’s the kind of first date guy he is.

“Can you eat in that thing?” He refers to her leather skirt and bustier. 

“I don’t know why I let Dina pick out my outfit. I’m starting to feel like maybe hooker chic isn’t the kind of first date vibe I should be sending out.”

“You don’t look a like a hooker. A very fancy call girl, maybe.”

“I’m your girlfriend experience. Great.” Amy holds onto Jonah’s arm tighter.

“You look hot.”

When they finally get seated at their table, no one seems to take note of her outfit, so Amy calms down. They order wine and two prime rib dinners before she excuses herself to the ladies’ room. A woman stops her on the way and asks her where she got her shoes and two cougars from the bar follow to ask her where she got her bustier. Amy isn’t used to being seen like this, but she kind of likes it.

She spends ten minutes in the bathroom when Emma calls crying. She snuck out of her grandparents’ house, got drunk at a basketball game, and needs a ride home. Amy promises she’ll be there in fifteen minutes.

She scampers back to the table and spots Jonah and the waiter who’s uncorking their wine. “Change of plans. We’re going to need our dinner to go.”

“What’s going on?” Jonah asks with concern.

“Emma’s in trouble. And _she called me_.” Amy tries to imbue it with her full meaning. Emma chose her over Adam. Adam is the fun one, and Amy is the disciplinarian, and still Emma called her.

“Of course she called you. You’re her _mom_ ,” he says it like it makes perfect sense to him.

“Waiter, can you toss in a couple of desserts? I read the butterscotch pudding and the chocolate ganache cake are excellent.” Jonah hands the waiter a discreetly folded hundred dollar bill.

Amy smiles at Jonah. “Thanks for understanding.”

“It’s not a problem.” Jonah tries to hide his disappointment and he does a great job. They make small talk while they wait for their to-go bags, and Amy lets Jonah pay for their meal even though she really wants to offer to split it. She keeps apologizing until Jonah tells her to knock it off.

After they pick up a drunk Emma and get her sobered up with a bottle of water and a few dinner rolls from their doggy bag Jonah drives them back to Amy’s apartment. Amy gives Emma a verbal tongue lashing about underage drinking, and defying rules as a means to process her angst about the divorce. She tells her daughter that she and her father will sort out her punishment later, and Emma, for the most part, keeps her mouth shut because she’s learned that her mom isn’t above yanking her ear or throwing a chancla for dramatic effect. Jonah keeps quiet and drives cautiously, but he does allow himself to go two miles over the stated limit.

“Once I get her settled, we can eat dinner in the living room. I’ll light candles; it’s not as romantic as the restaurant, but it’s something,” Amy offers. She doesn’t want Jonah to go, she doesn’t want their date to be over even if it was interrupted.

“I’m going to barf,” Emma announces from the backseat.

“Do it outside!” Amy yells. She shakes her head at her child.

“I’m not actually going to throw up. You’re just so old and cute.” Emma gets out of the car and heads inside.

“Again, sorry for that,” Amy sounds like a broken record.

Jonah shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

“I think this is why you should date a twenty-two year old.” Amy feels like she has something caught in her throat again.

“Why exactly?”

“Because they’re carefree, they don’t have a teenage daughter rebelling and ruining their date.”

“It’s not ruined. Come on, Emma’s got a headstart and you’re really slow in those.” He points at her shoes.

“I’m old Jonah, my feet can’t take this torture.”

“You’re not old.” Jonah sounds annoyed.

“I’m joking, but my feet really can’t take these shoes after working retail.”

“So take them off. Walk barefoot.”

“Ew, no! I’m not walking on the ground.”

“You’re such a mom.”

“I am.”

Jonah holds Amy’s hand all the way to her apartment. She kicks off the shoes and leaves them in the tiny foyer. She follows Emma to her bedroom to get her settled in for the night to sleep off her hangover. When she gets back to the living room Jonah has found plates and heated up their food. Amy helps by setting the coffee table with real linen napkins and lighting a pair of taper candles set in Ikea candle holders.

She can’t realistically sit on the floor in a leather skirt and bustier so she puts on her sexiest lounge clothes. She puts on a lace bralette that doesn’t really match her boy shorts, and a floral silk kimono she bought on a whim at Forever 21. It’s sexy, but not bordering slutty like her outfit was. She feels good, and that’s all that matters.

“Outfit number two. Okay, Beyonce,” Jonah says when she reenters the living room.

Amy smiles. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all. But I should warn you, you’re flashing me right now.”

Amy looks down and notices that her right lace-clad breast is exposed. She pulls the robe closed and reties the belt. “Noted.” She feels her face turn ten shades of red.

“Do you have wine glasses?” Jonah asks.

“Yes, but the only wine I have is red in a box by Cloud 9.”

“Well, the waiter sent us home with an unopened bottle, so I thought we’d start with that.”

“That was nice of him. I don’t suppose it’s because of the enormous tip you handed him?”

“You weren’t supposed to see that. I get very self-conscious about tipping the service industry. I think it’s some sort of internalized Jewish guilt? I’m trying to work through it. I bought a new journal.”

Amy gives Jonah a tight smile and nods, she’s at a loss for what to say. She opens the bottle and pours two glasses. She and Jonah clink them together.

“It has a lot of smoke on the nose,” Jonah remarks. “I’m getting into wine. Did you know that NPR has a wine club now?”

“I did. We heard the commercial on the way to the restaurant.”

“Can we eat now, I’m starving.”

They get settled on the floor and eat their dinner and talk about work stuff for a bit, and then Amy starts talking about a trip she’s planning with Emma during spring break to Chicago. Jonah tells her he has _so_ many ideas and that he’ll start a Pinterest board for them. They finish the good bottle first and then drink two more glasses each from the Cloud 9 box. It’s not as fancy as the bottle Jonah ordered at the restaurant, but it’s not terrible. 

“Very fruit forward,” Amy teases. “I read it on the side of the box.”

When Jonah decides to call an Uber after midnight because he is a strict observer of the legal limit, Amy works up the nerve and asks him to stay. “I don’t think I want to have sex tonight, but I’d like it if you stayed. I mean, you don’t have to, I get it if you want to go. It’s probably not the best first date--”

“--It’s better. It’s better than anything I imagined,” he says sincerely. And it is sincere, because that’s who Jonah is, and that’s probably Amy’s favorite thing about him.

Amy leans in and kisses Jonah. It’s not weird. Well, it’s a little weird because they’re in her apartment and her daughter is asleep just down the hall, but the kiss itself is not weird. _It’s nice. It's romantic._

“Come on,” she says, pulling Jonah’s hand toward her bedroom until he follows her.


End file.
